


Because you Left

by Straccia_Tella



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, after bloodlines, getting this up before s6 kills us all, keith is confused, krolia is trying, lots of emotions, neither come out of this okay, voltron angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:18:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straccia_Tella/pseuds/Straccia_Tella
Summary: “You know… I used to wonder why dad always had this knife. Why he kept it for so long. He’d-he’d tell me that you were always watching over me when we’d look up at the stars at night. Every time, I would hope that one day you’d show up and… we could all say that we were a family.”





	Because you Left

“How much did you know about Keith?” Krolia asked, crossing her arms and glaring at Kolivan’s back.

  She had just marched into the control area where her leader always stayed, and was a little surprised that he hadn’t been waiting at the loading docks to scold her or Keith. Her son had been silent for the whole trip back to the base after she revealed that she was his mother, and even once they docked he listlessly walked away still not saying a word. As much as she wanted to talk to her son, she _had_ to get answers from Kolivan.

  “Tell me you destroyed the super weapon,” Kolivan said gruffly, swiping a hand across a screen.

  “No, but with any luck, it should starve itself once it’s finished with Trugg and any of her soldiers. Now, answer my question, how much did you know?” Krolia growled. “There must have been a reason you specifically sent Keith to retrieve me. You have at least a hundred members, more experienced Blades. So why did you choose him? Why now?”

  “I sent Keith because he needs to learn to put the mission over the individual,” Kolivan finally turned to glare at her. “From what I can gather, that’s a teaching you still seem to forget.”

  “You have a greater ulterior motive than that. You _must_ have realized that Keith was my son.”

  “I’ve had my suspicions,” Kolivan admitted.

  “Which were?”

  He finally turned to Krolia, his face still stuck in the perpetual frown that he was so well known for, but Krolia felt something off. Kolivan felt more on edge when he was addressing her, the way he did when she returned with a repaired shuttle and a missing blade.

   “The first time we saw his blade we assumed he stole it, and then he awakened it during his trials. After he joined us, I started to see the resemblances he had to you.”

  Krolia kept quiet, registering all of this information.

  “You know our code, and yet you still saved him?”

  “I abandoned my son once, and you expect me to do it again?”

  Kolivan sighed, or maybe it was a growl. At this point, Krolia could really care less what Kolivan thought of her.

  “You were always a reckless one.”

  “And yet, here I am.”

  If he was going to be mad, he might as well be mad at her. Another sigh left his lips, as Kolivan pulled up another screen he continued the conversation with Krolia.

  “Why didn’t you report any of this?” Kolivan asked. “Do you have any idea what kind of dangers you’ve brought onto our society by having a child with a human?”  
  “I didn’t think any of my personal business that occurred on earth would be any of your business,” Krolia retorted. “I found information on the Blue lion, and I thought that was enough for you to know.”

  Kolivan’s frowned deepened and he turned away from Krolia to look at his screens.

  “Bring Keith in, I need to discuss his next mission.”

  “No. I didn’t even know he was with the Blades until today, and for all I know he could have died before I ever got to see him again,” Krolia said. “Let me talk to Keith, Kolivan.”

  “Krolia, this is not negotiable,” he said.

  “I haven’t seen him in decafeebs! You _will_ let me talk to my son!”

  Silence hung in the air, and then a miracle occurred, Kolivan caved in. He turned to give Krolia another glare, his fist clenched and his voice rasped.

  “Do what you like.” He pulled up a screen, showing her a map of the base, and pointed one of the sleeping quarters. “Keith should be here. But when you’re done, you will tell him to report to me for his next assignment and that is all I’m willing to give you.”

  Krolia turned her feet and headed out, not even bothering to thank Kolivan for the time he allotted for them. Her heart was beating fast, but it also feeling extremely heavy in her chest. She didn’t know whether this kind of feeling was supposed to ease her upcoming worries or steel her for them. 

* * *

 

  Keith had been sitting in his room for about a whole hour, idly fiddling with his knife, rolling it around in his hands and looking at his reflection which was a solemn expression. So many thoughts were rushing through his head, and he was having difficulty trying to sort each one out.

   Just a few hours ago, he was sent on a mission to retrieve a spy for the Blades, and that spy Krolia, just so happened to be his long-lost mother. Confusion couldn’t even begin to describe how he felt about this whole situation. If he had talked to her about their situation, he felt that he would have crashed their ship into a floating asteroid. He didn’t believe in a higher power, but Keith could swear that it felt like there was someone out there constantly toying with his life.

  “Keith, are you in here?” Krolia asked, her voice coming out muffled through the doors.

  He jolted up from his bed, startled by the sudden noise. Was he so deep in thought that he didn’t even hear Krolia’s footsteps approaching?

  “…Yeah, come in,” he answered warily.

  The doors slid open and there Krolia stood, still dressed in her Galra uniform. She walked in and as the doors shut behind her, it not only left them in semi-darkness, but also in dreaded, smothering silence. Neither of them looked ready to start a conversation. Keith sat hunched over on his bed, his knife laying at his side while Krolia crossed her arms and seemed to be extremely interested in the lightings on his wall providing them will dull glow.  

  It was so quiet, he could have heard a pin drop.

  How does someone start a conversation with a person they thought abandoned them as a child and is suddenly reunited with nearly two decades later? “Why did you leave?” “How’s space been treating you?” “Oh, by the way, I was a paladin of Voltron before I became part of the Blades. You know, leaving everyone I love and care for behind so I can protect them elsewhere, or because they don’t really want me around. I’m just following in your footsteps.”

  At least both of them seemed a bit awkward in the social department, but Keith didn’t know whether or not to take that as a positive characteristic. Time felt so stagnant he wasn’t sure how much had really passed. Where they just quietly standing here for seconds, minutes, hours?

  He had been imagining a scenario like this for his whole life, and now that it was actually happening, he was beginning to wish that this day had remained a mere fantasy. Some days, he would think about what he would say to his mother if he ever saw her again. What questions he would ask, and maybe throwing in a couple of jabs at her absence in his childhood for good measure. But nothing was coming to him. He would have preferred if she just get this moment over with so they could return to whatever semblance of normalcy they had before meeting each other.

  Krolia finally disengaged her interest in the lights to look at Keith’s face, giving him a warm smile.

  “You look a bit like your father.”

  Keith wanted to ask why she thought bringing up how he looked like his dad was a good topic starter, but he wasn’t feeling that bitter yet. He decided to humor her.

  “How did you meet my dad?”

  “It’s a very long story. I’m sure your father would love to tell it to you more than I do.” Krolia’s smile dropped as quickly as she drew it. “He promised he would tell you everything once I returned to earth, or once you were of age.”

  _But you never did_ , Keith thought, looking down at his clenched hands.

  “Well I haven’t seen him since I was a kid, so there’s that promise gone.”

  Krolia’s eyes widened and she looked at Keith in a mixture of confusion and distress.

  “… He left you?” She took a step forward to Keith. “How did you survive then? Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, he just vanished one day and then I got sent to the Garrison after that. Then I was kicked out. I lived in the shack for about a year before we found the Blue lion and then Voltron.”

  She started to look even sicker than he could have imagined.

  “No, no, that can’t be right, he said he’d look after you, he promised me,” she glanced at her knife and looked down to the floor. “I can’t believe he left you.”

  “People tend to leave me. I’ve gotten used to it,” Keith spat and Krolia’s head snapped up.

  “Keith, I know what I did was-”

  “No, you left.” Keith interrupted, his blood beginning to bubble under his skin. “You left dad and you left me.”

  “I didn’t have a choice, Keith. If the Galra Empire got word of the Blue Lion’s presence on earth, it could have had disastrous consequences.”

  “Sure, they didn’t get the Blue lion, but when we started to assemble all of the other lions the Galra managed to get their hands on the Red lion.” Keith snapped back.

  Krolia closed her eyes in what seemed to be an attempt to compose herself before she spoke again.

  “There are many things in this universe that’s beyond our control, Keith-”

  “Like how you leaving earth was beyond your control?”

  Anger or irritation flashed across her face, something that gave Keith a small sense of accomplishment. All of the anger, the bitterness, and the confusion he felt towards Krolia that had been held back by a dam for so long was finally breaking. Now, he wasn’t sure if he could stop it.

  “I left because I had no other choice!”  
  “You had a choice! You could have left, or you could have stayed!” Keith stood up from his bed, rage coursing through is veins and burning him alive. “You left dad! You left _me_!!”

  The words kept pouring out and he couldn’t stop it. What made him feel worse was the fact that he understood why she couldn’t stay on earth. She was a Galra. She would have stood out amongst the human population, or worse, she would have been experimented on. But he wanted to yell, he wanted to do something to hurt her, and he wanted to have someone to blame. All of those years of frustration, the loneliness that slowly built up to his fear of abandonment came pouring out.

  “I know! I left you! That was the decision that I had to make!” Krolia yelled back.

  Her hands uncrossed and instead being clenched into a tight fist.

“For all of these years, I looked back on that moment every single day and regretted it! I consider it one of the greatest mistakes of my life! But I want to be here for you now!”

  She stretched out a hand as if to touch Keith, but he slapped it away.

  “How can you say that to me now after all this time?!  I don’t know anything about you! Even though we share the same blood that doesn’t mean I consider you my mother!!”

  This time, Krolia looked extremely taken aback. Her eyes widened and she faltered as if he had punched her. She tried to regain her balance and speak as calmly as she could.

  “Keith… I wasn’t there for you when you were a child, but I’m here now. I want to be able to make up for all of the pain I’ve caused you.”

 “ _’But I’m here now_ ”? What difference is that supposed to make?! That doesn’t change the fact that you weren’t there! Where were you when _Dad_ left?! When _Shiro_ disappeared?!”  His eyes and lungs started to burn.

  He tried to lower his voice, but it refused to go down from anything but a scream. He wanted to jab at anything that could hurt Krolia, he wanted to make her feel even sorrier than how she felt now.

“Where were you when I spent an entire year in that shack after the Galaxy Garrison told me that the one person who actually cared for me went missing in space, and said it was all his fault?! Nowhere! You weren’t there!”

  He paused for a moment to breathe, looking down at the knife in his hand that he had unconsciously picked up. In the blade’s reflection, he could see the tears running down his face staining his skin and he wiped his running nose. He kept staring at the reflection, wondering how he had gotten here.

  “You know… I used to wonder why dad always had this knife. Why he kept it for so long. He’d-he’d tell me that you were always watching over me when we’d look up at the stars at night. Every time, I would hope that one day you’d show up and… we could all say that we were a family.”

  He laughed, his voice sounded hoarse.

  “Now, I get it. All of those things he said. During my trials, he told me you’d explain everything, but now I don’t know if I want that.” Keith felt his grip tighten as if he was hoping he could crush the hilt of the knife in his hand. “Why would I want anything from you?”

  Krolia took a step forward, attempting to talk to him again.

  “Keith, please-“

  “NO! YOU WANT TO MAKE UP FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE BUT HOW IS THAT SUPPOSED TO HELP?! I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT YOU AND ALL I HAD OF YOU FOR MY WHOLE LIFE, WAS THIS _STUPID KNIFE_!”

  Keith angrily tossed his knife to the floor, hearing the metal clang loudly onto the floor and all Krolia could do was stand there quietly waiting for him to calm down. The room was left in the uncomfortable silence again, and after his breathing even out, did Krolia dare herself to speak up again.

  “I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness, Keith. You have the right to be angry at me. I abandoned you I can never truly make up for all of the times I missed with you.”

  Keith’s entire body was trembling, and his eyes wavered between hate, sadness and greater confusion. He knees started to give way, causing him to stumble back onto his bed.

  “…Just, leave me alone.” He begs, pulling his legs up to his chest, crossing his arms over his knees and pressing his head down.

  This was just too much. Too much for him to deal with. He needed time to himself, to sort things out on his own.  The last thing he wanted was to be seen sobbing.

  Krolia walks over to thrown knife, picking it up from the ground and gently placing it next to Keith, who refused to acknowledge her presence. Her fingers lingered on the blade before she withdrew it completely.

  “I’m sorry if this is all a bit too much for you. But know that not a day went by where I regretted leaving you, and your father on earth. I lov-,” she bit her tongue and dropped what she was about to say. “… Never mind.”

  Keith kept his head tucked into the crook of his arms and his legs pulled up to his chest as Krolia headed for the doors. Her footsteps came to a halt as she remembered what Kolivan told her to do. She had almost forgotten after their heated conversation.

“Kolivan wants to speak to you later about your next assignment. Go to him when you’re ready.” Krolia said, turning her head back slightly to get a glance at Keith.

  His position hadn’t changed. Why had she been expecting him to handle this revelation with the ease he had in taking out the Galra sentries? She was beginning to regret ever trying to talk to him after what he had just discovered. The doors slid open allowing her to walk through and when it shut behind, she leaned against the wall. She could still hear his cries coming through the door if she listened hard enough. Her vision began to blur and she swiped a hand over her eyes, finding a thin trail of tears on her palm.

  She couldn’t stand the nausea slowly overcoming her as she pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose, trying desperately not to slide to the floor and giving into her despair. Now wasn’t the time. She had more things to worry about now. Keeping Keith safe, and helping him however she can. The Blade was not the place for her son, and now she had to make sure nothing else could hurt him. After she managed to regain her composure she walked off, hoping she still had some time left to convince Kolivan to assign her to whatever assignment he was giving to Keith.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, getting this out before s6 ends up killing most of us. While I enjoy the happy Krolia and Keith hugging reunion, I think this is one of the more realistic approaches.


End file.
